What and When
The one child policy was introduced in China by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 where couples were encouraged to have only one child in order to lower the birth rate of the country.
When the policy has relaxed from when it was first introduced in 1979 and now if a couple has a girl as their first child they would be allowed to have a second child in the effort to have a boy, this is because in China the genders are not equal as it is the boy who continues the family name and cares for the family.
There are also other exceptions to the rules
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Families living in rural areas
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Children born overseas
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Ethnic minorities
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Disabled children
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Parents who work in high-risk occupations
Where and Why
The one child policy is most famously associated with China which is in south East Asia sharing boarders with countries like Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, North Korea and India.
The reason why the one child policy was introduced was due to the rapid increase in China’s population. China’s population is concentrated to the east towards cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. It is the highly dense cities where there is a stress for materials and supplies compared to the rural areas of China where there is less demand in the area for supplies and materials. The one child policy was introduced to reduce the population in the short term and in the long run as from 2079 to 2010 400 million people were not born and these babies would not grow older and one day have children of their own.
How
The policy worked with rewards for only having one child and punishments for having more.
|
Reward |
Punishment |
|
Higher wages |
Fines from $370 to $12,800 |
|
Interest-free loans |
Pressures to abort pregnancy |
|
Retirement funds |
Confiscated belongings |
|
Priority housing and school enrolment |
Fired from work |
As you can see the Chinese government really want to control their population so that they can be sustainable with their consumption of materials and supplies.
But the fines can vary far from the $370 to $12,800 as in Shanghai the maximum fine for having a second child could be $67,444 which would be a problem as the average annual salary of Shanghai is $8,357 as these people would not be able to pay this fine. This is not to say there people do not pay these fines as 1 in 175 people in shanghai are millionaires and can easily pay the fine so generally have more than 1 child.
Advantages of the OCP
The one child policy may to some seem barbaric but it has led to several developments in the country such as due to the decrease in potential population there would be an increase in food per person in the country due to 400 million people not being born. With fewer children educational resources can be concentrated on a smaller amount of children resulting in better educations of the children, with less people there is less of a demand for medical resources resulting on better health care for the country. With only one child a family has only to care for the one increasing the amount of disposable income for the family. With the decrease in pollution it would reduce the unemployment rate due to fewer people for the same amount of jobs.
Disadvantages of the OCP
The disadvantage of the one child policy is that it has produced a preference towards male children as it is the males which carry on the family name and care for the family which results in gender inequality where female babies are often abandoned, neglected or even killed. If a woman has one male child and has another child they could be fined an amount more than double their annual family wage which can plunge the family into financial ruin, but the female can also be forced to abort the child if it is not already born or sterilise the male. With only one child per family this causes a problem in the long run as once the parents have retired then they go and live with their child where the child must support his own family and his or her family. But due to the high life expectancy in China the child may have to support their family, their parents and their grand-parents (4:2:1), and if the child is married then not only could they has to support their own side of the family they could have to support the spouses side of the family resulting in which in the worst case scenario one man could be supporting 14 people.
